SEO experts need these 6 must-have skills.

If you think SEO marketing is as simple as plugging in a few keywords into your content and website copy, think again.
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Even if you think you know which keywords to target, figuring out how to collaborate with content marketers, earn backlinks, and hire developers for technical SEO work on site speed, schema, alt text, and page optimization for mobile — it all takes a specific SEO skill set.
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Here are a few of the top skills MarketerHire vets for before admitting an SEO consultant into our freelance network:

  • Analytics: SEO consultants need to carefully consider marketing analytics to come up with an effective keyword strategy that also improves user experience, conversion rates and more.
  • Keyword research: SEO consultants need to have the proper knowledge and resources to do comprehensive research on your competitors and the popular queries in your niche.
  • Industry news tracking: Because SEO is constantly changing, an SEO expert needs to read the industry’s latest reports and research regularly.
  • Backlinking: A solid link building strategy is crucial for boosting your site’s domain authority and driving organic search traffic to your site. This takes some internal links, and a partnership strategy so you don’t get stuck with no follow links.
  • Technical SEO: SEO consultants need to be able to identify and address any technical issues on your website. This goes deeper than title tags, meta tags and meta descriptions. We’re talking about markup, schema, CSS, XML, HTML and more – all of which affect page rank.
  • Site usability and intent: Blogging, backlinking on the proper anchor text, avoiding duplicate content, and increasing search engine results for branded pages are all part of the role of an SEO marketer. But true experts also understand user intent, and create quality content and pages to match that intent and increase conversion rate. This combination of UX and SEO is why SEO works so well.